Designer Nicci Gabriel and former IDEO consultant Caroline Hu Flexer co-founded Duck Duck Moose to build smartphone apps for children. The mother of two young girls, Caroline wanted more quality educational apps for children. So she did it.

After launching four years ago, the company recently raised $7M in Series A funding from by Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Stanford University.

These co-founders produced all music and illustrations for Duck Duck Moose apps themselves. They ran user testing with help of friends and their children. In fact, the Duck Duck Moose website thanks “Product Managers, Caitlyn (6), Sara (4) and Gray (1) [for] keep[ing] us hopping with an ongoing flow of ideas and are more than happy to be paid in snacks.”

Congrats to co-founders Nicci Gabriel, Caroline Hu Flexer and Michael Flexer – as well as their product managers – on the Series A funding to build more quality apps for children!

Got a minute? Check out this MSNBC video compares Duck Duck Moose to Leap Frog, both powerhouse makers of children’s educational play apps:

Children’s STEM education can be, as the video explains, accelerated with MIT’s Scratch, which motivates learning through playful experimentation and creation of projects like interactive stories, games, music and art – and shares them online.

Women 2.0 members: What are your favorite educational apps for children?
Let us know in the comments!

About the writer: Angie Chang is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Women 2.0, a media company offering content, community and conferences for aspiring and current women innovators in technology. Our mission is to increase the number of female founders of technology startups. Previously, Angie held roles in product management and web UI design. Angie holds a B.A. in English and Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. Follow her on Twitter at @thisgirlangie.